PEACE from TREES

One of 28

What sings in you that is gone and for so long unheard? Where in imagination's travel is the way to find and reclaim your song's power? A great wind's breath as African dust travels round to raise us as a strong Amazon.

This sound of you travels earth's air to reach you. Hear it in rhythm under soil as ceramic, as crystalline, as even our own fire-arising-sky. As far away as stars, as deep as depths of stones so far under their earth-warmed by its core. This sound is beneath your greatest silence.

It's a song that's alive as swaying tall wind of long-well-fed hungers for sun-mineral-rain. A fierce pollution absorbed to green and flowering, a breath of ever-knowing, forever meant to change, our still whole and unveiled mystery amidst a world disguised, of true sound, of true song, as how we unmask.

Poem and Photos by DeaneTR (c) 2007

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This series of 28 photo-poems are inspired by recent scientific discoveries related to forests around the world. The poem above is inspired by the condensed news article below. If you'd like to learn about forest issues from around the world on a regular basis subscribe to my newsletter / weblog, which is called: "Earth's Tree News." Which viewed on the web at http://www.livejournal.com/users/olyecology or
by sending a blank email message to earthtreenews-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
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More than half of the dust needed for fertilizing the Brazilian rainforest is supplied by a valley in northern Chad, according to an international research team headed by Dr. Ilan Koren of the Institute's Environmental Sciences and Energy Research Department. The researchers suggest that the Bodélé valley is such an important source of dust due to its shape and geographic features: it is flanked on both sides by enormous basalt mountain ridges, which create a cone-shaped crater with a narrow opening in the northeast. Winds that "drain" into the valley focus on this funnel-like opening similarly to the way light is focused by an optical lens, creating a large wind tunnel of sorts. As a result, gusts of surface wind that are accelerated and focused in the tunnel lift the dust from the ground and blow it toward the ocean, allowing the Bodélé valley to export the vast amount of dust that makes a life-sustaining contribution to the Amazon rainforest. The data revealed that some 56 percent of the dust reaching the Amazon forest originates in the Bodélé valley. They also showed that a total of some 50 million tons of dust make their way from Africa to the Amazon region every year, a much higher figure than the previous estimates of 13 million tons. The new estimate matches the calculations on the quantity of dust needed to supply the vital minerals for the continued existence of the Amazon rainforest. Contact: Jennifer Manning jennifer@acwis.org 212-895-7952

PEACE from TREES